


The Dhalpuri Job

by gloss



Category: Ocean's Eight
Genre: Crew bonding, F/F, Food, Gen, Rooftop Kisses, and making up, less than in canon!, light drug & alcohol use, moms are fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: Nine Ball takes everyone out for roti. Amita's crushing hard.





	The Dhalpuri Job

> _I represent Queens, she was raised out in Brooklyn._ \-- LL Cool J, "Doin' It"

Debbie and Lou are fighting like cats, like exes, like partners with a whole lot left unsaid. Everyone’s hunkered down and waiting out the storm.

“God,” Amita says as she sidles into the kitchenette. “If I wanted to hear my mom shout angrily at—. Well, not my other mom, but you know what I mean.”

Constance is sitting cross-legged on the counter, methodically stirring honey into something steamy that smells like wet grass. “No, what’re you talking about?”

Amita wishes she could lift herself up and perch like a cool, interesting bird like Constance. Or slump elegantly in the one chair like Nine Ball. Nine Ball’s got her elbow up on the back of the chair, one leg folded over the other, her laptop balanced perfectly in the nest of her lap. 

Amita jerks her thumb back toward the living room and widens her eyes just as Lou says, loud and clear as a siren, _if you felt that way, what was stopping you from saying so, **darling**?_

“Oh, yeah, that.” Constance bobs her head rapidly. “They got a lot of history, huh?”

“I think so,” Amita says. “I dunno, I really only ever dealt with Deb.”

“Me, I’m Team Lou,” Constance says, squirting _more_ honey into her drink.

“We’re all one team,” Nine murmurs without looking up. The way she says it, it’s like a Zen koan, or a benediction, something wise and generous and you’re just so thankful to be around to hear it.

“Right!” Amita nods, only just manages to stop herself from clapping. “ _Right._ ”

Constance grins dopily and slurps her tea before saying, “The human team!”

Nine Ball reaches over and they bump knuckles gently, like they’ve been best buds for years. Amita wishes she had somewhere to sit.

Out in the living room, something glass crashes; the jangling noise echoes down Amita’s spine. There’s silence for one-two-three seconds before Debbie says, all calm and cold, “are you finished?”

“Am I finished?”

“That’s what I asked. Are you? Finished?”

“Oh, no. No, my dear, sweet, if somewhat snappish, ex-con, I am just getting started.”

From the back door, Tammy sticks her head into the kitchen. “How long have they been at it?”

“Where have you _been_?” Amita tries to keep her voice down, but it’s difficult.

Rose wiggles into view under Tammy’s arm. They’re like Laurel and Hardy, these two, one stick-thin and tall, the other round and frazzled. “Fashion! Turn to the LEFT.”

“Yo, you’re _wasted_ , sis!” Constance calls and Rose dissolves in giggles and curtsies. Amita wants to hush them, but that’s an old impulse from childhood: huddle quiet while ma and baba argue. “Sisses. Sisti? Sis-issises,” 

“We were casing the Barney’s sample sale,” Tammy says. She looks much less agitated than Rose, but if you look closer, the flush high on her cheeks and strands of hair sticking to her lipstick give her away.

Amita knows beauty. This is what she *does*, identifies and grades beauty. It’s can only be done, she’s always thought, from the outside. You need to be outside the quality you seek, loupe in your eye, breath held.

If you’re beautiful, it’s a whole other situation. If you’re Amita’s sister or Penelope Stern, you’re inside. You don’t have to worry about finding it and grading it. You just know who’s in with you and who’s elsewhere. Outside. 

So what the hell is she doing here with these women? It’s been weeks and no one’s made a fat joke or called her make-up “garish” or _anything_.

“We were NINJAS,” Rose puts in and then actually, literally, cackles.

From the living room, there’s a loud thump, then another one, almost like the sound of a rolled-up carpet hitting the floor. Everyone holds their breath, until Debbie starts talking again.

Somehow, Nine Ball closes her laptop, unfolds herself, and rises to her feet in a single perfect motion. Half her mouth lifts in a smirk when she sees everyone watching her.

“Hungry,” she says. “You coming?”

After half a second of looking at each other, shrugging, and hesitating, they all follow her out the back. In the damp, chilly night, she slings one arm around Amita’s shoulders, the other around Constance, and pulls them in close. 

“Roti,” she says. “We’re doing this.”

“It’s going to take us like an hour, two hours, to get to Queens,” Amita points out.

Constance agrees. “And the 7’s not running this weekend neither.”

“ _Trini_ roti,” Nine Ball says.

“Excuse you?” Amita tries to pull away. “I think my people know roti, okay?”

“That’s right!” Constance says. “Queens, _represent_.”

Amita meant Desi people, but that works, too.

“Trini-Chinese, actually,” Nine Ball says, like their protests are just pleasant Muzak to her.

“Ayyyyy,” Constance says. “I like this! I like this a lot.”

“Traitor,” Amita mumbles.

Grinning, Constance reaches around Nine Ball and bumps her knuckles against Amita’s arm. “No loyalty when it comes to food, sorry.”

“Eh,” Amita says, loath to kick up much of a fuss when she’s both this happy and this hungry, “that’s fair.”

A stretch Escalade is waiting for them at the end of Lou’s gravel driveway-slash-loading dock. 

“Who’s paying for this?” Tammy asks. Nine Ball shrugs and smiles pleasantly but doesn’t reply.

She holds the door for each of them, like she’s the gallant bachelor and they’re all the giggling hopefuls. Like as in, that’s basically what they are, Amita has to concede, if only to herself.

“Oh, no, no, I don’t think so,” Rose mewls when they pull up to the storefront in Crown Heights. The bright neon in the window glows like margarine, like new dandelions, so cheery-yellow you can’t help but grin. “ _Curry_? But my stomach...”

“Relax,” Tammy tells her, in her best mom voice. “I’m sure they won’t make it too spicy if you ask.”

Amita yelps with laughter before she can stop herself, and Constance high fives her. Even Nine Ball smiles a little, slow and serene. “There’s fruit and shit,” she tells Rose, “maybe get a smoothie.”

Rose coos at that idea, which turns out to be a good thing; the only other fruit on the menu is curried mango.

Inside the narrow space, everything glows and buzzes a little. It’s the neon and the hiss of oil in the pans and burst of spices in the air, and it’s something more. It’s being out with most of the crew like this, elbowing each other, sharing nibbles, squealing with laughter. 

“Remember, sis,” Nine Ball says, right into Amita’s ear. Amita’s still trying to decide what to order, her neck craned back as she reads the menu for the umpteenth time.

Nine Ball’s behind Amita, holding her shoulders lightly, bending down to speak to her and her alone. Amita has only rarely felt this dizzy and exhilarated. The first time, she saw 98 Degrees at Westbury Music Fair on her thirteenth birthday. Another time, when she made Dean’s List at C.W. Post the same weekend her sister broke her nose. (Amita has never claimed, out loud, to be a good person.) 

“It’s all good,” Nine Ball breathes and massages Amita’s shoulders a little, “it’s just food, just enjoy.”

She could probably be told to, like, assassinate the President right now and Amita would nod and smile and hunker down in the nearest book depository.

“Yo, this stew chicken is the _tits_!” Constance bangs into Amita’s side and shoves the roti at her. “You got to try this!”

She has to open her mouth, otherwise she’ll get roti smeared all over her face. When she _closes_ her mouth, that’s when things go from great to _what the **fuck** out of this world_. The food is steaming hot and spicy the way she’s used to, cumin and mustard seed ground up and swirling togehter; the paratha is chewier than she likes, and its layers are filled with — something.

She tries to cover her mouth as she asks, “what’s in the bread?”

“Dhal,” Nine Ball says. “You like?”

“Dhal’s lentils, this is...” She cocks her head and chews and, _god_ , this is so good, rich and complicated and amazing. “Peas? Yellow peas.”

Nine Ball looks impressed, and Amita needs to freeze this moment for _ever_ , because when is such an impossibility ever going to recur? Day after never, that’s when.

She orders her own roti and digs in, but only after repaying Constance (”with interest!”) for the bite. This is like eating at her cousins’ houses; the elements and textures are pretty familiar, but everything is just different enough—no bite of coriander when she expects it, turmeric that’s smokier than her mother and grandmother use—to keep her excited.

Afterward, her lips burn with capsaicin and her tummy’s full and on the ride back, she shares a beer with Nine Ball. Technically, if you think about it (and Amita is), they’re _swapping spit_. Now she’s laughing, just bubbling over with giggles, and she doesn’t want to stop.

“You ate without us?” Debbie asks when they file in. She and Lou are lying on the couch, legs tangled up, hair messed, lipstick smeared. “Where’s the love, ladies?”

“Right here, by the looks of it,” Tammy says. Lou smiles and buries her face in Debbie’s hair. Rolling her eyes, Tammy drops her doggie bag on Debbie’s chest. “Chow down, I couldn’t have another bite.”

“Veg?” Lou asks, reaching across Debbie to snag the bag.

“Here’s yours,” Constance says. 

“Hey,” Nine Ball says softly, knocking Amita’s elbow with her own so lightly it could have been an accident, except Nine Ball doesn’t do anything accidentally. Amita’s starting to get that. “Come outside?”

“Sure!” Too late, Amita hears her dorky enthusiasm. She presses her lips together and shakes her head, like she’s chastising an excitable puppy. 

Nine Ball’s stride is long and loose. She moves like she has all the time in the world, which is not something Amita herself has ever felt. She uses her phone to light the way over jagged rocks and then up the side of the building on the metal fire-escape. 

Nine Ball holds out her hand and tugs Amita off the ladder and down onto the roof. The roof itself is a little lower than the edges suggest, so they can sit here, backs against the cold brick, and the world drops out sight. If she squints, Amita can make out some lights in the harbor, but they’re just bright blurs, nothing compelling.

“Girl,” Nine Ball murmurs, drawing it out into several syllables, as she passes the blunt over.

“Present.”

“What’re you staring at?”

Amita has not smoked up since college, and that was a disaster, and just exactly who does she think is?

She’s a highly-competent jewel thief and social engineer, that’s who. At least in the last few weeks.

“You’re just so pretty,” she replies, then takes a cautious drag.

The blunt tastes like cherry pipe tobacco and the scent of Cosntance’s tea and—she’s reaching here but who cares—Nine Ball’s lips. Sweet and smart things, spicy and unexpected, and the smoke’s starting to curl out the corners of her lips like she’s a dragon in a cartoon.

“Takes one to know one,” Nine Ball says, which doesn’t make any sense, not to Amita’s delightfully addled brain.

“What?” All the smoke comes out and clouds Nine Ball’s face.

When it clears, Nine Ball is that much closer and they’re kissing and holy _shit_ Amita’s never coming down. From the roof, from this exultant high, from _anything_.


End file.
